Irving Robbin(1918-2010)

Emmy Award-winning composer Irving Robbin pursued his musical education entirely in his birthplace, New York City where he graduated from Stuyvesant High School with a background in physics and chemistry. Originally trained as a pianist, he left that pursuit in his late teens for the broader and more creative field of composition. His theoretical studies were at the music school of the YMHA, where he also studied composition with Horace Grenell. Grenell sent the young composer to the Juilliard School of Music for advanced studies, and to be auditioned by the renowned American composer Roy Harris, who accepted him as a classroom student and, after several months of work, granted him a personal scholarship. Robbin worked with Harris for several years and began to develop his personal style. His earliest works were performed in New York, and the "Sinfonia No. 1" was taken on a national tour by conductor Edwin MacArthur. A set of short dramatic pieces was written for the Office of War Information in 1942 and recorded by the brass section of the New York Philharmonic. Afer military service in World War II, Robbin returned to New York, started a family, and began to explore and expand his own approach to the art of writing music. In addition to compositions for concert presentation, he has written extensively for television and film, holds five Emmy nominations, and in 1980 was the recipient of an Emmy award for original music for television drama. He has had a long career as a music director in radio, television, and film. He has been a guest lecturer at New York University, the University of Missouri, and the Encore Program at Orange County Community College. Irving Robbin has had his music performed in the United States, Europe, South America, Central America, Russia and Japan, and has conducted his own orchestral works on many occasions. In the summer of 1982 he was invited to be a guest artist at the "Sessione Senese per la Musica e L'Arte" at the University of Siena in Italy, where he conducted the premiere of his "Essays for Small Orchestra". From 1983 to 1986, he taught composition at their summer sessions following an invitation to join the faculty. He has conducted his own works in such diverse places as St. Petersburg, Russia; Siena, Italy; Toledo, Ohio; Ann Arbor, Michigan; New York City; and Munich, Germany. A resident of Chester in Orange County, New York for more than thirty years, he has produced a chamber recital series in Sugar Loaf, NY and served as composer-in-residence of the Highlands Symphony Orchestra since its incorporation in 1988.